White Devil Mountain (37 page)

III

The golden cape fluttered at the far end of the pathway.

“So, you’ve come, D? You’re probably rather intent on slaying me, but you should wait here a moment. Once you’ve seen what the Sacred Ancestor saw, then you can decide what to do.”

A ghastly aura already churned from every inch of D, but now he let the power drain from him.

The two of them walked side by side. Advancing about fifty yards down a gentle incline, they came to a point where an enormous iron door blocked their progress. Fresh soldiers were lined up in front of it.

“That’s the same number of soldiers, armed with the same weapons as when you fought them. Watch and see how I fight.” Gilzen bared his teeth. “Even the Nobility, so proud of their ageless and undying nature, are destroyed when they’re run through the heart. That’s no different for the Sacred Ancestor or any other Noble—or for you.”

Nothing from the Hunter.

“However, I wouldn’t call that true immortality. That was the first thing I set out to correct. You’ll want to watch this.”

Still walking forward, Gilzen nodded.

There was the sound of iron bowstrings slicing the air in unison, the noise becoming ten arrows centered on Gilzen’s throat and heart.

His neck torn halfway through by the force and weight of the arrows, the Nobleman turned to D and bared his fangs. Using both hands to grab the arrows stuck in his throat and chest, Gilzen pulled them all out at once.

“So, true immortality has been accomplished. What’s next?”

His smile deepened. It was directed at the bowmen. His subordinates were still frozen in the pose of firing their bows as his gigantic form leapt into their midst. The duke’s scepter flashed out, and his cape danced on the air like the wings of a mystic bird. In five seconds flat the ten bowmen lay on the ground. Not one of them still had a head.

“Did he really need to kill ’em?” the hoarse voice sighed with grief.

Perhaps those words reached the duke’s ears.

“Whether it was on my orders or not, I can’t allow anyone who attempts to take my life to go unpunished,” Gilzen said, his reply tinged with laughter.

D said nothing. There were still more soldiers.

“What are you doing? Slay me. I believe I made it clear to you earlier that if you don’t, naught but death awaits you!”

The faces of the soldiers took on a hue of death. They failed to move not due to any wish to disobey Gilzen’s commands, but because of the air of malice that gushed from his massive form.

“Oh, you lousy weaklings!” Gilzen shouted, charging forward. A flashing swipe of his scepter felled several decapitated riflemen.

Finally returning to their senses, the soldiers readied swords and firearms and launched a counterattack. Gilzen’s body was pierced in countless spots by crimson beams and silvery sword blades. His heart was run through with a long spear, while the soldiers’ other spears nearly took his head off.

The conflict was finished in less than a minute. Although the soldiers were battling for their very lives, it was unclear if the same could be said of Gilzen. Glaring at the soldiers swiftly decomposing and turning to dust, their lord was stuck full of arrows and spears, and his clothing and armor still smoked and burned from a shower of laser blasts. All the fingers of his left hand save the thumb had been taken off, and an iron arrow was still embedded deep in his right eye.

“This is just like—the Standing Death of Benkei,” the hoarse voice murmured.

However, this Benkei was obviously still breathing. The slices around his neck were now just thin red lines. The places that’d been charred by lasers were swelling—and one could hear the hard rattle of arrows and spears falling against the floor as the Nobleman’s flesh pushed them back out. His hand reached for the arrow in his right eye and extracted it. The bloody cavern of a socket he’d been left with was now occupied by a perfectly formed eyeball. It reflected the young man in black.

“How about that, D? Do you think you can best me?” And then the duke grinned.

There wasn’t a single mark anywhere on his body. He was a demon of a man, surpassing even D in his indestructibility.

“You may attack me now if you like, but first I’d like you to see something else. The fruits of my labors, so to speak. Fortunately, they make their home near the reactor.”

Gilzen went over to the iron door and gave it a push. It opened slowly but without any resistance, and then the Nobleman went inside. D followed after him.

The air was hot.

“Well, reactor or not, this is beyond the norm. Don’t tell me it’s overloading or—no, hold on.”

In response to the dubious tones of the hoarse voice, Gilzen replied, “You’ll see soon enough. Never mind that, be careful.”

The interior was shrouded in darkness. It seemed an unimaginably careless state for the most important area of the castle. D had already noticed the air of malice that filled the darkness.

There were a dozen of them—one of which charged them from the right. It was a swordsman clad in rags discernible even in the gloom, but what was the cause of his killing lust?

“Gilzen!” the foe bellowed as he made a slash.

Easily avoiding it, the lord of the castle pointed to D, saying, “This is my most esteemed colleague.”

His foe glared at D. Cloudy and bloodshot, his eyes had a look of madness. His hair and beard were chaotically overgrown, and on that filth-encrusted face the lips alone were beautifully red.

“You’re his damned colleague?”

D didn’t reply to that voice, which seemed to rise from the bowels of the earth. The fangs that peeked from between his foe’s lips were proof that this was a Noble. Not that the young man was the kind of person to spare someone who bared their teeth at him just because they were human.

His foe kicked off the ground, and the instant he passed the Hunter, the attacker’s body split in two. Blood and entrails splashed across the stone floor, while D’s blade reversed course and aimed for the Noble’s heart.

“Wait!” a voice called to the Hunter from the depths of the darkness. What halted D’s sword was the ring of seriousness that voice carried.

The source of the voice was one of the enraged—and D could make out a figure who was, not surprisingly, covered in rags from head to toe. Another piece of cloth covered his head, leaving his eyes alone exposed.

“It wasn’t you we were after. It was that man, Gilzen. Though we were at fault for attacking, please don’t deal him the final blow.”

“Is that the voice of Bengus, captain of the guard? I’m surprised you’re still alive,” Gilzen laughed. It was an outright sneer.

“Gillespie, Hakolo, and Baichung are all here as well. My lord, all the victims of your cruel amusements have survived all this time on hatred and resentment alone,” said a vengeful voice that seemed to burn with shadowy fires.

“That is good to hear. It is the special privilege of the Nobility to enjoy life eternal! I take it you are comfortable in the bodies I gave you?”

The air shook. The anger, grief, and hatred of those who’d been cast away in the darkness flowed like waves through the pitch blackness.

“Sheesh, I don’t even—”

It was unclear what D made of the words his left hand let slip out.

The figures who lurked in the darkness had all once been known as Nobles, as was plain by their features and the clothes they wore. Ageless and undying—a cruel fate for those who’d been altered like this. Not one of them was entirely intact. One had viscous, waxy fluid dripping from their skin, while another had arms and legs covered with scales like a reptile. There was one who, lacking a lower half, scrambled closer on claws that scratched against the stone floor. Whistling past D was a whip—no, it was a long, long tongue belonging to a woman. Was that chattering down by his feet the sound of gnashing teeth? The source of the sound was a second mouth snaking back to a man lying down a good thirty feet away.

“So good of you to come . . . And good of you to bring him,” said an old man’s voice. “I was . . . Duke Gilzen’s steward. I served him to the very last drop of blood in my veins . . . and this was my reward. After we were sealed away in this hole, we waited. Oh, how we awaited your visit, my lord . . . Now, if you would be so good as to let us evince our hatred.”

And how did Gilzen react to that appeal of bloody malice that seemed wrung from their very entrails? He laughed. There in the blackness, he reared back and bellowed with laughter.

“You worthless fools can’t comprehend the meaning of greatness. Your bodies were sacrificed toward the shining future of the Nobility. What’s more, as compensation for the forms you’ve taken, I believe you also received powers no ordinary Noble would possess. You hate me? Hatred? Give thanks! Thank me!”

The hoarse voice groaned with surprise.

A terrible killing lust had changed the composition of the air. A killing lust? No, it was an air of anger. The feelings of those who’d lived for hate and hate alone at being told not to be spiteful but rather to be thankful put a bitter grin on Gilzen’s lips.

“Filthy ingrates. It would seem you’re hell bent on turning your fangs against me. I shall grant your wish. Let our gorgeous guest see your powers in all their glory. D, you’re not to interfere in this.”

“No, you must not!” the steward cried out. “This is the opportunity for us to demonstrate our hatred. Any interference is unnecessary.”

D only said one thing: “You can’t win.”

“We know that,” the steward replied. His tone was cheerful. “All of us have known that from the start. Though we may not be able to so much as scratch him, we can raise our hands against Duke Gilzen—that in itself is enough to put a smile on our faces as we mount the road to our destruction. Our hatred might not be served, but allow us this.”

“Understood.”

“You have my thanks. And we are ready, my lord!”

“Oh, come then. You fools. Curse the fate you yourselves have chosen.”

D watched the entire scene that played out a second later. How a mouth full of fangs biting at Gilzen’s throat was effortlessly ripped apart. How the woman’s tongue that wrapped around Gilzen’s neck was torn out at the base. How the steward sailed at the Nobleman, only to have his heart pierced by a single thrust of the duke’s scepter. The steward had said they might not be able to so much as scratch him. That was the truth. One after another the remaining compatriots were slain, and before they had time to even scratch the duke, the dwellers in darkness had been exterminated.

Thumping his chest, Gilzen laughed.

“Did you see that, D? I don’t mean how they died, but their powers. Those were given to them by the alien technology. Do you understand, D? That’s precisely the kind of potential I was aiming for in the Nobility. Do you not think it far more realistic than the Sacred Ancestor seeking the same by mixing our blood with that of the lowly humans?”

“You should’ve tried asking them.”

“Ask them? What are you saying? I make
declarations
! I tell them to take pride in their fates. That their bodies have been given over to the future of the Nobility.”

“Are you satisfied now?”

D’s words cut Gilzen’s monologue short. Looking at the Hunter’s face with surprise, he said, “So that’s it? You really are that sort of man, aren’t you? One look at the Sacred Ancestor would tell me that. I have but one remaining desire. D, I want your blood.”

Gilzen extended one hand. It was trembling.

“I rank myself as a perfect being. However, to be honest, I find it difficult to entirely discount the other possibility. Or the dream the Sacred Ancestor had. If the two different paths of evolution were combined, a new line might be born. In the same way, if our two potentials were mixed, it might lead to a third—to new possibilities. Toward that end, I need your blood.”

“Is that why you returned?” D asked coolly. “I’ll grant your desire. But you’ll have to draw my blood with your own hand.”

From the Hunter’s back there was the sound of steel being unsheathed.

As if in response to his opponent’s murderous intent, Gilzen braced his scepter for action.

“I’ve injected myself with alien blood,” Gilzen said, striking his chest with his free hand. “You’ve been given the blood of a human. Which of these potentials best suits the universe? D, let us decide the matter once and for all! And with the blood that drains from your body, I shall search out new possibilities.”